Frankenstein - National Theatre Feb 11th
I took a chance on booking two consecutive nights in preview - even though they could not say which actor would play which role - but now know they are not swapping nightly yet
Last evening we saw
Jonny Lee Miller play the Creature and Benedict Cumberbatch as Victor.
This evening - t'will be the same - so first trip of this morning was back to The National where my tickets for this evening's show are up for return but they don't offer them up until 6pm (why??) so we still have to go back at 7pm and see how it goes.
THEN - it will be a 6.30am trip one day to the box office to get the required second viewing ;-)
Unspoilery - GO GO GO!!! Or - book for NTLive and see it in your local cinema - worldwide (I am doing that too!) - Without seeing the other side of them (yet!) I am going to see Benedict as Creature on screen - for he is my favourite ;) AMAZING performances from both leads - but the Creature is by far the more powerful role. The book is told from Victor's point of view - the play is ..not! The set was incredible - the music atmospheric and it is a 2 hour straight through - no interval - ride. Holy crap. The seats in the stalls we had we row E. None too shabby. NONE TOO SHABBY when you realise they are actually 2nd row - due to the tiering. Sooooooooo close! :-) And it amused me how independently, both Mister Jay and I came to the same conclusion that Zubin would have been awesome in this. Jonny is very similar in his acting style - very.
We stage-doored for a half hour - to no avail - but then I wussed out and we left ;) - plenty of time yet. It is extending into May - yay! - But they are not sure how far (due to Sherlock filming no doubt).
Easy to seem a bit Sherlocky in parts - stalking about telling everybody and himself - how brilliant he was! ;)
Before the show they send out an email telling you you need to be there at 7.30pm prompt - as you will not want to miss the start!
No, you wont.
As you take your seats a huge bell hung high in the auditorium occasionally tolls. Doom-filled. [hah - just found out audience members do the ringing - the rope is in the stalls] And you slowly become aware of the large circular object on stage. It's like a drum-skin up-ended. Womb-like. And within the skin a shape starts to move, and bumps appear and the shadow of a figure presses against the surface until he is finally born - spilling out naked and groaning on to the stage.
The staging and the music are incredible. Particularly effective is this huge swathe of light-bulbs - all different shapes and sizes - pointing in a long finger over the top of the stage and the bulbs are either set a-twinkling or phasing on and off throughout the play to create the mood. For the start all the bulbs are flashed ON for a split second - then off. AND ON .. off ...ON ..., and the effect is literally blinding. We are experiencing The Creature's emergence in to the World.
I must say - The make-up - the "stitching" is extremely effective... apparently takes 2 hours to do and half an hour to take off!
Abandoned immediately by his Creator, we see the Creature encounter the beauty of the world (the audience oooh and aaaah in equal wonder at the effects - have you seen a flock of paper birds applauded? I have) ..and then of course, it is the ugliness of mankind that shapes his actions moving on.
My favourite scenes were many - but the ones where the blind man is teaching The Creature to speak and read are way up there.
Another favourite - where Victor becomes aware of the potential consequences of carrying out his promise - making his Creation a mate. On stage, this is achieved through Victor speaking to his dead little brother.
There is no mollycoddling Victor here. No wringing of hands nor mopping of brow as his slips into his madness, further and further consumed by the burdon of his terrible secret and the horrors of his own making. His father (who I am afraid to say - imho - rather let down his fellow actors - in being as wooden as a wooden thing!!) is verging on the shouty, demanding where is the Victor they used to know? - and Elizabeth - gets one of a few laughs of the evening telling him "do you think I'm going to marry a man who talks to me like that?!") You tell him, girl! Victor is alone.
He clearly needed a cuddle ;)
Even so, our sympathies sit squarely with the being who did not ask to be born. Who fights to live though he would have wished to die. Who wanted to be good. Who just wanted somebody to love and to love him. Even the graphically shocking violence of the rape and murder of the one person who tried to understand him, do not shake our feelings. He admits - Victor has taught him all he knew, yes. How to hate, how to express cruelty and how to lie.
Cue the standing ovation.
It is hard to imagine Benedict and Jonny playing the other role, as both seem to be perfect fits this evening. I will find out. Just not today! [edit: colour me even more impressed! - that was the first time either of them had played THAT part - up until Friday, for the previous 4 previews - they'd been the other way around. Blimey]
Last evening we saw
Jonny Lee Miller play the Creature and Benedict Cumberbatch as Victor.
This evening - t'will be the same - so first trip of this morning was back to The National where my tickets for this evening's show are up for return but they don't offer them up until 6pm (why??) so we still have to go back at 7pm and see how it goes.
THEN - it will be a 6.30am trip one day to the box office to get the required second viewing ;-)
Unspoilery - GO GO GO!!! Or - book for NTLive and see it in your local cinema - worldwide (I am doing that too!) - Without seeing the other side of them (yet!) I am going to see Benedict as Creature on screen - for he is my favourite ;) AMAZING performances from both leads - but the Creature is by far the more powerful role. The book is told from Victor's point of view - the play is ..not! The set was incredible - the music atmospheric and it is a 2 hour straight through - no interval - ride. Holy crap. The seats in the stalls we had we row E. None too shabby. NONE TOO SHABBY when you realise they are actually 2nd row - due to the tiering. Sooooooooo close! :-) And it amused me how independently, both Mister Jay and I came to the same conclusion that Zubin would have been awesome in this. Jonny is very similar in his acting style - very.
We stage-doored for a half hour - to no avail - but then I wussed out and we left ;) - plenty of time yet. It is extending into May - yay! - But they are not sure how far (due to Sherlock filming no doubt).
Easy to seem a bit Sherlocky in parts - stalking about telling everybody and himself - how brilliant he was! ;)
Before the show they send out an email telling you you need to be there at 7.30pm prompt - as you will not want to miss the start!
No, you wont.
As you take your seats a huge bell hung high in the auditorium occasionally tolls. Doom-filled. [hah - just found out audience members do the ringing - the rope is in the stalls] And you slowly become aware of the large circular object on stage. It's like a drum-skin up-ended. Womb-like. And within the skin a shape starts to move, and bumps appear and the shadow of a figure presses against the surface until he is finally born - spilling out naked and groaning on to the stage.
The staging and the music are incredible. Particularly effective is this huge swathe of light-bulbs - all different shapes and sizes - pointing in a long finger over the top of the stage and the bulbs are either set a-twinkling or phasing on and off throughout the play to create the mood. For the start all the bulbs are flashed ON for a split second - then off. AND ON .. off ...ON ..., and the effect is literally blinding. We are experiencing The Creature's emergence in to the World.
I must say - The make-up - the "stitching" is extremely effective... apparently takes 2 hours to do and half an hour to take off!
Abandoned immediately by his Creator, we see the Creature encounter the beauty of the world (the audience oooh and aaaah in equal wonder at the effects - have you seen a flock of paper birds applauded? I have) ..and then of course, it is the ugliness of mankind that shapes his actions moving on.
My favourite scenes were many - but the ones where the blind man is teaching The Creature to speak and read are way up there.
Another favourite - where Victor becomes aware of the potential consequences of carrying out his promise - making his Creation a mate. On stage, this is achieved through Victor speaking to his dead little brother.
There is no mollycoddling Victor here. No wringing of hands nor mopping of brow as his slips into his madness, further and further consumed by the burdon of his terrible secret and the horrors of his own making. His father (who I am afraid to say - imho - rather let down his fellow actors - in being as wooden as a wooden thing!!) is verging on the shouty, demanding where is the Victor they used to know? - and Elizabeth - gets one of a few laughs of the evening telling him "do you think I'm going to marry a man who talks to me like that?!") You tell him, girl! Victor is alone.
He clearly needed a cuddle ;)
Even so, our sympathies sit squarely with the being who did not ask to be born. Who fights to live though he would have wished to die. Who wanted to be good. Who just wanted somebody to love and to love him. Even the graphically shocking violence of the rape and murder of the one person who tried to understand him, do not shake our feelings. He admits - Victor has taught him all he knew, yes. How to hate, how to express cruelty and how to lie.
Cue the standing ovation.
It is hard to imagine Benedict and Jonny playing the other role, as both seem to be perfect fits this evening. I will find out. Just not today! [edit: colour me even more impressed! - that was the first time either of them had played THAT part - up until Friday, for the previous 4 previews - they'd been the other way around. Blimey]